


Would You Let Me Touch Your Soul Forever?

by LostInFern



Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Bisexual Din Djarin, Din Djarin Needs a Hug, Din/Xi'an is only temporary and mentioned for story purposes, Emotional Hurt, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Everyone Needs A Hug, Explicit Language, F/M, Gay Cobb Vanth, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, Modern Era, Not Beta Read we Die like Warriors, Original Female Character(s) - Freeform, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Physical Abuse, cobb vanth needs a hug
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-24
Updated: 2021-01-24
Packaged: 2021-03-14 22:35:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28928148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LostInFern/pseuds/LostInFern
Summary: Life always had a weird way to bring people together. Wether in the form of friends, found family or even in the form of a lover. Din an Cobb had nothing in common, or so they thought. Both of their worlds were so different. One was an elementary school teacher and the other one of the richest men in the country. But both of them had a lot in common too, a broken heart was one of them. And life made their paths crossed and set them in the direction to become something they never thought they'd be.
Relationships: Din Djarin/Cobb Vanth, Din Djarin/Xi’an
Comments: 10
Kudos: 29





	Would You Let Me Touch Your Soul Forever?

**Author's Note:**

> This is a chapter which purpose is to set each of Din's and Cobb's backstory to the timeline where the fic will take place. It's a pretty important chapter, it'll make you understand why their lifes and them are the way they are, among other stuff. Also DinCobb has been living in my mind rent free since chapter 09 and I got all this monster of an idea and I just had to write it down, hope you guys like the ride. Also also I want to thank my friend sarah and the dincobb discord server for indulging me into making this fic :)

Din Djarin was a simple man. Always quiet, reserved, if something was troubling him he never showed it. His life always began very early in the morning and ended very late into the night. And it mainly consisted of three things: take care of his two-year-old baby boy Gregorio, who he fondly called Grogu, work as an elementary school teacher and pay the bills. Simple enough it might seem, but in reality, Din’s life hasn’t been anything simple.

Din’s pain and struggles began when he was only eight years old. His parents and his unborn sibling died in a car accident in which Din was the only survivor. Up until this day, in his early forties, Din remembers that day exactly how it happened. Not any single detail missing, everything got engraved in his memory for the rest of his days. 

It was a Saturday morning, in the month of October, when his mother’s water broke and went into labor. They were expecting a baby girl, and Din was more than excited because he’d finally be able to hold his little sister, play with her when she grew up, teach her how to defend herself from bullies or other kids who’d wanted to steal her toys or lunch. They all headed to the hospital in a hurry. Din’s mother was on the co-pilot seat, breathing heavily and trying her best not to scream from her contractions but failing either way through gritted teeth, Din’s father had a hand on her shoulder for moral support, to show her she was not alone in that situation despite the fact she was the one giving birth, and Din himself was on the backseat, watching all the chaos unfold around him, telling his momma they were almost there at the hospital and to remember the breathing exercises the videos showed them when they practiced the baby’s arrival several times at home. 

Then, on a split of second, when Din’s father turned around to ask him to give him a towel to clean his mother’s forehead, a car driving in the opposite direction on the same lane and at a really high speed that was driven by a man who was fleeting from the police for robbing a pawn shop, crashed with them, front by front. 

They never made it to the hospital. Only Din.

The loss of his parents shaped him deep down to his core. He went from being a cheerful, extroverted and talkative boy, full of life and happiness, a walking ray of sunshine his parents used to tell him. Din was now entirely the opposite, he wasn’t a ray of sunshine anymore, he felt more like the shadows that laid behind it, that no matter where the rays were headed, the shadows will always be there with it, following silently.

But Din had a ray of sunshine of his own, and every single time such ray smiled or called him dada, Grogu’s rays tried to crack through Din’s shell and illuminate the shadows that stood even on the most remote places. He was more than grateful for his son, he loved him no matter what, even when Grogu painted trees or bugs on the walls with neon colors crayons or spilled flour all over the floor that time when Din tried to make cupcakes for his second birthday. Din even loved Grogu more than himself, more than life. Even more than his own wife.

Xi’an left them when Grogu was only six months old. It was a freezing cold winter night. Both of them woke up at four in the morning at the sound of Grogu’s cries.

“Go see what it wants. Let me sleep”, Xi’an said as she rolled over on the bed and gave her back to Din. She always addressed his own son by  _ it _ , and not by  _ him _ , like if it was a thing or a puppy and not a tiny human being that desperately needed her.

“Please don’t call him like that. We’ve talked about this”, Din begged while placing a hand softly on his wife’s shoulder. As soon as his hand touched her she flinched to try and remove it away from her. Dead silence was the only answer she gave him, silence that was only filled when another wave of Grogu’s cries echoed through the house.

Din’s heart tugged at his chest, a feeling deeper than sadness threatened to nag and chew at him because of his wife's rejection towards her own child. A child they made together, as the couple they were. A child he made with his wife out of love because despite how bad she used to treat him at times, he still loved her, and the child they created and brought to life was everything Din could ever wish for, even when Grogu’s own mother didn’t want him. So Din willed down the lump in his throat and swallowed hard to try and push the feeling away and gather the necessary strength to put on a happy face for his son and check why he was crying, which one of his needs needed care. 

After a few moments, when the nagging feelings that attempted to grow in Din calmed down, he exited the room and walked towards Grogu’s baby room, which had walls painted of a soft green color, adorned with cartoonish and colorful drawings of animals and trees here and there, along with a white cradle that had little plushies and stars hanging on top which danced and spinned around making all kinds of soft noises. Some other white furniture which purpose was for taking care of an infant stood in the room, and a shelf full of plushies too. 

Din settled up the whole room by himself, painted the walls and drew cute and funny animals on them by looking at some drawings he found on the internet, though his artistic skills were far from good but he loved his son and was more than happy to set up a room meant for him. Din’s adoptive mother, Nila, helped him by buying the furniture for her grandson, and filled the shelf with plushies that were there. She loved her son Din like if he was of her own flesh and blood, and was more than happy and thrilled to be a grandmother.

“Hey there buddy,” Din said softly and with a warm smile when he picked up his crying son in his arms. As soon as Din cradled Grogu onto his chest, his cries stopped, the baby suddenly calmed when he felt the comforting and warming presence of his loving father, “Hm, strange”, was all Din could muster when he witnessed what just happened.

“Why were you crying? Did you poop yourself, huh? Or are you hungry?” Grogu smelled more than fine, the faint smell of the baby soap and shampoo still lingered, traces of the bath Din gave him before putting him to sleep earlier were still visible on him. “Okay no poop. I think you’re just hungry, yeah you’re definitely hungry”

Despite the house having a heater system because winter tended to be merciless in the city he was living in, Din still grabbed a blanket that was perched on one side of Grogu’s cradle and wrapped him with it. He was actually grateful his house was a one-floor building, because otherwise his son’s room would’ve been on the top floor and he really didn’t want to go down or up the stairs with a six-months-old baby in his arms.  _ The devil never sleep, tragedies always lurk behind the corner _ , Din used to think. So in his mind, he was more than thankful for that.

A strange but not unfamiliar smell at all hit Din’s nose when he was on the hallway, making his way to the kitchen, halfway from it, and as soon as he entered it to prepare a bottle of formula for Grogu, he saw Xi’an sat on one of the chairs beside the kitchen island, unpreoccupied and not bothered at all, smoking a cigarette as if a baby wasn’t living in the same house with her, sharing the same space she was currently in..

Din just stood there, watching his wife smoking as if nothing happened, conflicted if he should have Grogu right there with him, inhaling the smoke of his mother’s cigarette. A mixture of shock and anger surged through his entire being, he couldn’t believe what was unfolding in front of him, because if Din didn’t want to believe Xi’an didn’t care not even an ounce about their own child, this was the final proof he needed to finally start believing. So Din willed his throat to do its work and swallowed the anger down. He was definitely going to confront her, but not lash out on her, he wasn’t and would never be like that, especially with a baby in his arms.

“Xi’an please put that cigarette down. It’s bad for the baby,” Din calmly asked her while still being glued to his spot, he didn’t want to go near her and put Grogu to breathe all those awful chemicals that were coming out of his mother’s cigarette and herself.

“I really want to finish this smoke,” Xi’an said after a couple of seconds, looking sadly at the cigarette she was holding in her hand and glancing not even once to the direction Din was standing with their child in his arms.

“You could finish it outside, but you know you shouldn’t be smoking, you’re breastfeeding Grogu,” Din said when he saw she finally put the cigarette down. That was his cue to finally get close and prepare that formula. 

With one arm wrapped around his son, he got to work on it, and with the other he fetched a clean bottle and started to heat up some water on a deep pan on the stove. Din’s moves were gracious around the kitchen, having done this hundred of times already, always with one hungry but calmed baby wrapped in one of his arms, cuddled onto his chest. Sometimes he even sang or hummed for his son, swaying gently for comfort.

“It’s freezing outside and I really needed that smoke.” she brought an elbow to rest on the kitchen island and put her hand under her chin, “and I have not even once breastfeed that thing” 

Upon hearing his wife talk about his son like that, made his blood boil up once more. The bottle he was holding in his hand that was already half full dropped to the floor with a loud sound, splashing warm water all over the stone. That made Grogu start crying again.

“I’ve already told you to not call him like that. He’s your son!”, Din’s voice got raised but he didn’t yell at her. No matter how awful his wife got at times he’d never yell at her.

“And I’ve already told you I didn’t want a baby. I never asked for it. Never wished for it or wanted it. Never!” But she... she was a different case. She was yelling at Din, at their son. The chair in which she was sat got thrown out to the floor when she suddenly stood and bursted out screaming, “I’ve never wanted to get pregnant. Not even once in my life wanted to have a baby inside me, and I’m nothing but a coward for not taking it out of me when I could’ve”

Her words were vile, horrendous, full of malice and hatred for her own child. Meant to hurt and to stab, but not her own child because Grogu couldn’t understand a single word, at least not yet. They were meant to hurt Din. To let him know she repulsed the baby she gave life and brought into this world. Din’s baby.

“Don’t say that. Please don’t say that,” he pleaded as his heart started to hurt. Tears were threatening him to spill down from his eyes and mark their path over his cheeks, but he didn’t let them, couldn’t let them. He needed to be strong because of the situation that was happening right in front of him. Needed to be strong for his baby boy, the one he was currently holding tight against his chest with both of his arms, as if trying to form a cocoon and protect him from his mother’s stabbing words.

“I wanted to give it up for adoption but you were so excited to have a kid, so I knew you wouldn’t have let me, and I had to just accept that that  _ thing _ was just going to grow in me and ruin the rest of my life,” Xi’an wasn’t screaming anymore, but her voice was still far from calm, “so I’ve had enough. I’m done. I’m tired of that thing crying every goddamn hour. I’m tired of the changes my body had to go through. I’m tired of feeling disgusted with this… this… I don’t even know how to call it, with this extra skin and marks on my belly that repulse me so much and makes me want to cut this skin out of me. I’m just fucking done and tired, but mainly I’m done with you!”, she pointed an index finger to Din’s direction, remarking and spating the word  _ you _ .

“Me? Wha-what do you mean?” Was all Din could manage to say. Disbelief was the main emotion he was feeling.

“Yeah, you heard me,” Xi’an was getting bolder and cockier by the minute, she realized she had the high ground in this situation and all Din could do was nothing, just stand there and try to calm a crying baby, “because you’re a fucking loser, Din Djarin, that’s what you are. These three years we’ve been together I spent them with you out of pity. I thought you were going to do something with your life. Earn a lot of money so I could live like I wanted and deserved to live. But you’re just a fucking elementary school teacher. How am I supposed to travel to the places I want to with the pathetic salary you have? Eat at the restaurants my friends eat? Buy the same expensive clothes they do? I can’t fucking do that, even with you working your ass off with two jobs I can’t even afford a pair of pants from the stores I want to buy them. I can’t afford anything!”

“B-but you know I’ve tried so hard to make you happy and give you what you wa-,” he was cut off by his wife’s screams again.

“That doesn’t fucking count! It’s not the same to buy a diamond from a fucking discount dollar store than to buy one from Tiffany’s. It’s not the same! And on top of that you had to knock me up and make me all bloated and disgusting. You fucking loser!”

“You told me you were on the pill and I trusted you. I-I trusted you,” Din’s voice broke at the word trust. The feeling of knowing that his wife lied to him, for those three years they were together her only purpose was to make him suffer, make his life miserable. It all was suddenly coming to him. Everything made sense now.

“I lied! You fucking idiot. You seriously think I was gonna have sex with you while you were wearing a rubber band on your dick? You really think that? You must be stupid to believe that, seriously. You have a really nice dick and I wasn’t really let it go to waste.” Despicable words spilled over her mouth.  _ Use _ . That’s the only thing she got out of him. Like if Din was nothing but a piece of napkin you just throw after you wipe out your mouth once with it and never look back to see how much it crumpled or how damaged you left it. Use it and never look back.

She never loved him. Never cared for him. Never looked at him with eyes that were meant more than to use him. She only used him to try to pursue a life of riches and luxuries she knew she would never have, because deep down she knew she’d never get anything better than Din, so at least she had to try to live as close as possible to the way she always dreamt of.  _ Why would a rich man look at me? I’m not even pretty. The only good thing I have is my body and rich men always want to have a beautiful wife, a trophy one, and I’m not like that. That could never happen _ , she used to think. 

So Xi'an settled up for the first man that looked at her, no matter if he wasn’t rich, because she thought that with some push and the proper hard work, she could make him buy her anything she wanted. Even if it meant for her partner to end up selling his soul to the devil himself in order to give Xi’an whatever she wanted.

“You aren’t saying that. How could you say all those things about Grogu and me? Your own son, Xi’an. Your own son! This isn’t happening. It just-it can’t be happening,” with the tears still caged in his eyes, Din demanded an answer from her.

Yes, she had already said all those things to him about the both of them, Din and their son, but he wanted to hear the exact words from her. Wanted to hear with his own ears the very same reason of all those years they spent together spill from her own mouth. The reason why the fight they were both in was very much real. No matter how much it hurt him to hear the words he needed to make everything clearer.

“Oh this is very much happening, Din,” Xi’an walked up to the hallway towards their room and stood there, looking but without actually seeing to the end of it. Maybe now she was the one gathering strength. Preparing herself for what she was going to do.

After it felt like ages but were only a mere passing of seconds, she looked at Din and finally spoke. “I said all those things because I don’t love you nor that thing you’re holding so protectively in your arms. I’ve never loved you and never cared for you. I used you to try to live a life I thought I could live, but you didn’t even were that much of a use for me. You were just useless. I’ll never get to live in a big mansion, wear designer clothes, have lots of diamond jewelry and travel the world like I’ve always wanted to. And there’s no point in pretending something that could never be, which in this case is me trying to obtain what I wanted from you. So I’m gonna go to our room and pack my things. I don’t care if it's even five in the morning. I’m gonna grab the car and leave. I don’t care if you have to walk or use the public transport to get to your job. I don’t fucking care. I’m done with you and that thing.”

There were the words Din needed to hear, laid flat as cards on a table in front of him, ready to be taken and processed. It didn't matter he didn’t want to hear those words. It didn’t. Because he needed them. They were the answer for everything he endured those three years he spent with her. Love was one of the reasons why he never left her. He loved her after all. And since he didn’t have that much experience with relationships to begin with, he thought that maybe that was just the way they were. Despite his mother Nila telling him over and over relationships didn’t work that way. But he loved her, and he couldn’t bring himself to leave her because he didn’t want to hurt her, and he thought that maybe, just maybe, she loved her too. But in truth, she never did.

Numbness started to take hold of him. Of his whole body and his thoughts. He didn’t fall to the ground out of sheer strength. Maybe the only one he had left in his body. Or maybe Grogu’s tiny and little body was anchoring what was left of his father to reality. There wasn’t anything a six-months-old baby could do. But maybe even the weight of that tiny body being held in his father’s arms could do miracles.

The only thought that was taking control of his mind like a plague was the words his wife spat,  _ I’ve never loved you nor that thing _ , and he was playing them over and over. Torturing himself more and more with each time he remembered them. And numbness was his only friend there. Enveloping him on a hug and taking control of him, trapping him in his own body. He even indulged in it and welcomed it. So much that Din couldn’t even hear his son’s cries, that were even louder than before. Cries that were desperately trying to bring him back.

Time passed and Din wasn’t sure how much. Perhaps a couple minutes, half an hour, an hour maybe? He couldn’t exactly tell. He was so lost in his own disbelief and grief that he didn’t register when Xi’an spoke to him. She had to shake him by the shoulder several times to finally bring him back to whatever place he was crawling deep inside his own mind.

“Never try to search for me, you get it? I don’t want to know anything from both of you after I walk out of that door,” Xi’an said with two big suitcases that looked right at the limit of their carrying capacity, held in each one of her hands. By the looks of her, Din thought that maybe half an hour had passed since she had changed, she wasn’t wearing the robe she was wearing before. 

“O-okay,” Din said after a few moments, after he managed to swallow the lump in his throat to get the words out of him. 

His eyes scanned her wife’s face for any sign of remorse written on it, but he found none. Determination with a mixture of indifference was more than settled on her face. A heavy breath Din didn’t know he was holding left his chest at the realization of it.

“I’m gonna take the car keys and be on my way,” Xi’an expressed while walking towards the entrance. A glass bowl that laid on top of a high and small table beside the main door contained such keys, which were then retrieved by her well manicured hand.

“You wanted a kid, well… it’s your problem now. Bye, Din.” Without even looking back at her husband and crying son, as if burying the past and leaving it behind her, she shut the door with a loud crash and left. 

After a few of Din’s breaths, the car was turned on and set its way into the street. Din could only see it, from the front windows of his home, fade away and disappear in the distance, out of his view. Out of his life. Xi’an, his wife, left him and their son. No, his son.

That was very much real and very much happened.

The tears that threatened him earlier were finally set free. Din let them carve its way through his cheeks. To run wildly. Only to be later thrown over the precipice of his jaw, to finally be greeted by his chest and even his son’s head. He let himself cry without restraint. Cry even as loud as his own son. Knees that were holding his weight finally buckled, and brought himself to kneel on the floor, holding Grogu close to his chest. To his heart. 

He let himself cry with abandon for a couple of minutes. When his cries finally subsided, it gave way to a wave of suffocating coughs and ragged heavy breaths, signaling the coming of an anxiety attack. After a few seconds fight to keep said attack away from him, to not indulge in it and let himself be trapped by a place so dark and hopeless that lives in his mind, he did everything in his power to control it and get a grip on whatever normal breath he could fill his lungs with.

“Shh, shh. It’s okay. Everything’s okay,” Din whispered to Grogu as he was making an attempt to stand on his feet once more. Petting his son’s head to try and calm him down from his cries, reassure him that everything’d be fine. Din wasn’t sure if what he was saying was meant to appease his son, or more to calm himself.

“Everything will be fine. Daddy loves you and is going to take real care of you. You’ll see. It’s okay. Everything’s okay”

So Din did what had to be done, and set himself to work on preparing a bottle of milk for his son. A son that now will need him more than ever. And he was going to do just that. Because he loved his son more than anything in the world. Even more than his own life.

**_______________**

  
  


Charming smile, cunning eyes, easy-going attitude, undeniable amount of charisma, always sure of himself, animal magnetism, a red scarf and great silver fox hair were the traits that characterized Cobb Vanth. That and his subtle but nevertheless attractive drawl. Well into his forties and nearing his fifteenth birthday by a couple years. Despite his age, he still had a lot of energy in him, had to have it or else he wouldn’t be able to keep up with a well earned lifestyle.

Because of it, his days were blurred out and he was never sure when one ended and where the other began. Always feeling like he couldn’t get quite enough sleep. That as soon as his eyes were to fall closed, his day was going to start all over. 

It never mattered how much he tried to take the most advantage of the few hours he was able to get from something Cobb used to call, in that little voice that inhabited his mind, “some resemblance of rest”, because it never felt quite like the real thing. Not that he complained though, he was quite fond of them in all honesty. They were after all, a sweet escape from a frantic life he was now the owner of. A frantic life thanks to a success he never anticipated, never saw himself having, at least not in a million lifetimes. But a success that was definitely highly wanted from a large group of people.

Cobb was the owner of several high class and luxurious restaurants around the country. Made his well-earned fortune with them. His success started with him opening his first restaurant in the city he was born. Came true thanks to a loan he requested from the bank just after finishing college, where he graduated, with honorific mention, to become a chef. He decided to name his restaurant “Ala’na”, in order to honor the memory of his mother and the love he had for her.

After a year of having his restaurant and being the head chef of itself, the success he had with it became wildly unexpected. Not even once in his mind, Cobb thought himself having full tables all the time his restaurant was open for dinner. Never anticipated it. A couple months later and the “Ala’na” was well known among the richest people of his city. 

So he saw himself planning on opening a couple more restaurants in different parts of his country, all with the same name, trying to see if Lady Luck (as Cobb used to call it) will help him with them too. Less than a year passed and they all had the same level of success. His restaurants were always requested among the highest of classes, and people always fought for a table in them. 

But he always remained humble, never forgot his origins and how everything started for him. How his mother, Ala’na Vanth, used to help him whenever she got some free time on developing the cooking skills that’d be needed for her son to make his dream come true. Something she did out of the pure love she had for him. An activity that was a complete secret between the two of them. Something they tried really hard to keep away from Cobb’s father, because they were both afraid of what could happen if he knew about it.

Cobb’s father wasn't always like that, his mother used to tell him. He was sweet and caring the first few years of their relationship. Until Ala’na got pregnant and Cobb came into the world. That was the exact moment everything changed and her world turned upside down. A world that was once full of love, care and respect, was now putrid, fetid and rotten. It wasn’t even a mere shadow of what it used to be before Cobb came in, it was a complete blackness that tried so hard to not give any way to light and to eat any semblance of hope in its path.

A blackness that'd tried, but never prevailed. 

Because no matter how much the pain of the hits Ala'na endured on her skin, Cobb would forever be that spark that lightened up her life. A spark that it didn't matter how far away it could be, even if it meant almost on the precipice of darkness itself, would always light up the path for her and give way for hope. 

And Cobb, even from a really young age, was very aware of what he meant to his mother, and how much she meant for him. They were each other sparks.

Cobb’s father always spent the days sitting on a couch in front of the television, doing absolutely nothing, just emptying the fridge like if the food that was there came from the money of his own wallet and drinking alcohol until he knocked himself out.

Cobb, on the other hand, never dared to go out of the house, not even to go play with other kids around his age that lived in the neighborhood or to the park that was a few blocks away from his house. He always came back right after school ended. Not because he was a real good and behaved kid, though he actually was one. It was more because the memories of a past experience left him scared of having to revive those same consequences again.

The feeling of the belt hitting the skin on his back over and over. How it cracked with every single hit and left a burn wherever it landed. The foul breath that reeked of alcohol that escaped from his father every time he yelled at him, telling him how he never taught his kid to be a brat and disrespect him by coming home late. 

Didn’t matter how much the hits hurt, how much skin they ripped apart and blood poured out of the cuts, Cobb never cried. Never gave pass to not even a tiny sob. Because deep down he knew that if he were to let the tears fall, the blows would be much much worse.

In reality, Cobb came back home only a couple hours late. One of his few friends, Sweaty Jimmy, which was what other kids used to call him, and who in fact wasn’t sweaty nor his name Jimmy, wanted to show Cobb his new toy car track his parents gifted him for his birthday a couple days back. Excitement and happiness surged through Cobb’s little body, and he immediately agreed to go to Jimmy’s house. 

So he made himself a promise. To always come back to his house right just as school ended, never go out to play or to his friend’s houses, no matter how bad he wanted to play with other kids and enjoy the little happiness he could find doing just that. A difficult choice for a twelve-year-old boy to make, but it was one that he told himself it was more than necessary.

But suddenly, one night, Ala'na's spark extinguished.

It was a night like any other night for Cobb, though it wasn’t normal at all, because his world wasn’t the proper one for a kid to grow up in. He spent it sitting in his bed, slowly but carefully doing his homework, when he started hearing his father yelling and stuff he couldn’t quite place up in his mind being thrown in what seemed different directions.

“What the fuck am I suppose to have for dinner, woman, huh?” The unmistakable voice of Cobb’s father resonated through the little two-floor house, “you come home from your shitty job and the fridge’s fucking empty! Empty, woman. EMPTY!”

“I-I’m sorry. I’ll see what I can make so you can eat. Just… just let me go to the market so I can buy some stuff and cook you something.” Ala’na’s voice was scared and low, as if she even raised it up a bit it might unleash a demon she didn’t want to confront at all.

“You’re going fucking nowhere. You hear me? You come home late today and now you want to go to the market? That doesn’t add up to me, Ala’na. Bet you were out there whoring like the fucking whore you are,” from his little room Cobb could hear the venom coming out from his father’s voice.

“Please, I’ve already told you, we-,” still in that low voice, Ala’na tried to explain to her husband.

“We made inventory at the dinner and had to close late, bla bla bla. Bullshit!” Her husband spat. “You were out there on a fucking corner wigglin’ your ass out for every men to see and fuck you right there”

“No! Please I don’t do that, I-” in vain, she tried to clarify everything. It never mattered how much she tried to, because her husband always prefered to believe the voices in his head whose only purpose was to whisper lies and cloud and twist his judgment.

“Everyone already knows me like the husband whose wife is a cheap-ass whore. You’ve embarrassed me. Disrespected me. But now you’re gonna learn to respect your fucking husband, Ala’na.” As soon as his ears picked up his father’s that were undoubtedly a threat, Cobb’s little body prickled up with alertness. His homework now set aside and forgotten.

“No. No! Please no! Stop! No! Stop! Argh-” And then, a sound that seemed as if something hit a wall with a lot of force and stuff being thrown around, came down from the kitchen. 

As fast as his legs allowed Cobb to go, he came down the stairs, two by two, to see what was happening and what that noise was. And he trembled, and fear started to take hold of his little body. Fear out of what his eyes were witnessing. Fear that he might lose the only thing-no, the only person he cared and loved for, and that he knew they cared and loved him back.

Against a wall, pinning her, was his father with his hands wrapped around his mother’s throat. 

Now was not the time to let fear get a hold of his body. Now was the time to be brave. As bravest as he could, as any twelve-year-old boy could. Ala’na needed her son, now more than ever. He was, after all, the only one who could save her. And bravery and love for his mother were the only things he could feel and allow himself right now.

So he surged forward and struck his father.

“Dad, leave her alone!” Cobb yelled as he started punching his father’s back with all the strength his body had, to make him let go of his mother.

“You… fucking…” Cobb’s father said through gritted teeth while squeezing harder against Ala’na’s neck. She was desperately gasping for air and clawing her husband’s arms and face to let her go.

Cobb took up a pan that was lying on the floor. “Get off of her! Get off of her!” he begged as loud as he could as he hit his father’s back and legs again and again, harder each time he hit him, in an effort to make him switch his attention and let go of his mother. Cobb was willing to be the bait in order to save her.

Then, after a few minutes worth of fighting, he let go of her neck. Ala’na’s body hit the floor with a loud thud, hitting her head in the process. Cobb instinctively turned his gaze towards her, to quickly check if his mother was physically okay. Seeing Cobb’s guard down, his father saw that moment as an opportunity to switch his fury onto him. 

“Come here you little shit,” Cobb’s father growled.

Angry fists were aimed towards Cobb. With the pan still in his hands, he tried his best to block them. He knew if any of them were to hit him, he might not be able to stand back, because he was young and little, a kid still. But Cobb was well aware that he had to try his damn hard to fight his own father. His and his mom abuser. The person who made his and his mother’s life an agony and a living hell.

If fighting his own father was going to give him his freedom, Cobb was more than sure he’d do it in a heartbeat.

And a window for him to strike back opened. After a particularly hard punch to the pan, his father grimaced in pain and retracted his hand back to watch the blood spilling out of his knuckles. Cobb saw that as an opportunity and hit one of his father’s knees, making him walk a few steps back and to buckle and fall down to the ground, perched on the one knee that was still untouched and an arm on the small kitchen table for purchase.

“And stay there,” Cobb managed to say after recovering his breath, with as much authority a twelve-year-old kid could have. He saw his father trying to stand up again, shaking the table and the few beer bottles that were on it, some of them falling to the ground and breaking.

Cobb turned around to check up on his mother and see if she was still breathing, but as soon as he turned his back on the vile and atrocious man that was behind him, a sharp pain and a noise that sounded like if clothes were being ripped apart, tugged at his neck, near his hairline. He dropped the pan he was holding in his small hands, and he fell on his knees and braced his body with his hands on the floor.

A vivid red liquid started to pour out and down his neck. Big droplets were making their way on the kitchen tile floor, tracing splashing patterns of all sizes and forms. The smell of iron took control of the room and Cobb’s nostrils, and it became everything he could smell and feel. His eyes went open wide, filled with panic and fear, when the pain and the blood on the floor in front of him made apparent what just happened. What just happened to  _ him _ . 

“You won’t get away from me. Not your mother and not even you. You useless and stupid kid. You’re just the son of a fucking whore,” his father was trying to get up, his move of incapacitating Cobb looked like it was successful.

But Cobb’s spirit could not be bent or broken. He was fierce, he’s always been. And now he had to be more than ever.

Small slippery hands, covered in blood, grabbed the pan that he was using as his weapon, and with a battlecry scream he aimed for his father’s head. With a hit right on the temple, his father’s large and big body fell to the ground. He hit him a couple more times to make sure he wouldn’t get up again, but left him alive and breathing.

As the adrenaline rush was finally subsiding, the pain and blood spilling out of the back of his neck was growing stronger. Cobb became very self-conscious of what happened to him and his surroundings, that included his mother still lying unconscious on the floor. With a quick scan of the kitchen, he saw a towel hanging from the oven handle and proceeded to grab it and wrap it securely around his neck, only leaving it loose enough for him to breathe

“Mom. Mom? Mom, please, wake up,” Cobb kneeled beside his mother and saw that she was in fact still breathing, “mom, say something. Please mom. Please. Wake up,” he started shaking her softly to make her come to her senses, but his tries were futile. 

Cobb couldn’t risk his father waking up, he knew he wouldn’t be able to outstand him in any way. The fact that he managed to hardly knock him unconscious was pure out of luck, Cobb wanted to keep counting his blessings, and he wanted to make his mom one of them. So, with the strength that was left in his body, he hooked his arms between his mother’s underarms and started to drag her outside the house. 

As soon as he kicked the door open, he heard one of the neighbors door open with a loud bang, though he couldn’t place in which direction the noise came from. As gently as he could, Cobb placed his mother’s body down on the entrance.

“Mom, open your eyes. Please open your eyes. I need you mom. Please,” he was becoming desperate at this point. Trying so hard to wake up his mother but it was all in vain. He wished for her to open her eyes. Eyes that were always gentle, no matter how much pain she endured. Eyes that were always full of love every time she looked at him. Eyes that Cobb desperately were trying to open.

“Oh my god,” Cobb turned around, at his left, when he heard the voice of his neighbor Lucinda, “Cobb, oh sweetie! The medics and the police are on their way. I called them as soon as I heard the screams,” Lucinda looked down at Cobb’s lap and saw Ala’na lying unconscious on the floor.

“Is she breathing?” she asked as calmly as she could, given the situation.

“Yeah but she’s not - she doesn’t open her eyes,” Cobb said with tears in his eyes and the feeling of an upcoming sob started to form deep inside his chest.

“She’ll be okay sweetie, the medics are on their way, they’re almost here and-,” she cut off when she saw the towel wrapped around Cobb’s neck and soaked with blood.

“Wha - what happened to you? Where’s your father?” Lucinda asked as she saw him with a mixture of shock and horror, a still bleeding Cobb with a towel around him soaking and dripping blood out of his neck.

“He’s - he’s in the - house”, he hardly managed to answer. The blood loss was starting to become too much to bear and sleep was slowly but surely taking hold of him. 

He didn’t want to sleep.  _ I can’t go to sleep, mom needs me _ , Cobb thought. As hard as he could, he fought to not let sleep take control of him, because he thought if he were to close his eyes he might not be able to open them again, and if he did his mom wouldn’t be there with him.

And so he fought and fought. Sirens started to be heard coming from far away, signaling they were finally almost there to help them. Lucinda kept talking to try and keep him awake, but her voice sounded muffled to him, as if she wasn’t there with him or if he was the one who was drifting away. He wasn’t sure which one was the right one. The mere act of thinking started to become exhausting for him, and he tried to focus himself on one thing only. 

Cobb kept fighting the need to sleep, but he didn’t win, it was a lost cause.

After what felt like ages, he finally opened his eyes, though he wasn’t in the entrance of the house he used to live in when he was a kid and he definitely wasn’t a kid anymore. His body was bigger, older, and he was in a room, in bed. Realization came to him that he woke up screaming, panting and sweating, with his alarm sounding loudly on the nightstand. 

Cobb just had a nightmare. 

A nightmare of the night he got that big and angry scar on his neck, which he always tried to hide with a red scarf. A nightmare of the night he lost his mother Ala’na.

Remembering the breathing exercises his therapist taught him to calm down the side effects his nightmares used to put him through, alarm already turned off, he got to settle down his panthing and make his breathing as even as possible. A mental check of what happened, that it was all a nightmare, he was safe in his apartment and nothing bad could happen to him, made everything easier. But it still didn’t ease the pain of that night, it only made it manageable. 

Unconsciously, like an instinct, his right hand went to his neck and he passed his fingertips through the scar as lightly as he could, as if not wanting to touch it at all, closing his eyes while he touched it. But he needed to feel it, he always did it every single time he got one of his awful nightmares. In some way, it helped him ground him in the present, that all his brain did was relive the past, a night he’d try to forget over million times but his mind refused in every single of them.

Maybe his mind, in some kind of twisted way, was trying to torment him, to remind him how he failed on saving the only person he knew that truly cared for him. That truly loved him for who he was and not for the person he let others think he was. Or maybe… maybe his mind was trying to tell him that while he gained something as valuable and precious as his freedom, he obtained it at the cost of losing someone who was dear and so important to him. 

Because sometimes life had its wicked ways of giving things while at the cost of others. A balance had to be maintained.  _ After all, you can’t have everything in your life _ , Cobb used to think. And he was more than grateful for his freedom. He truly was.

In that very moment, he made himself another promise. A promise that was, so far, the most hurtful of all. But if keeping it unbroken meant no one would be hurt because every time he tried for a commitment with someone he loved, something disastrous always happened, he was damn sure he’d kept it that way.

_ Can't be both successful in business and in your love life _ , Cobb used to think to not feel as guilty. A balance had to be maintained.

His eyes were still closed, he completely forgot about that while he was deep in his thoughts. After a few moments more, he let go of a breath he didn’t know he was holding at all. A deep intake of air and he retrieved his hand from his neck and got up from bed, readying himself to make a cup of much needed coffee, especially after having a nightmare, and go through his busy and long schedule so he could start his day. Breakfast was much later, at one of his many restaurants. 

That was a routine he’s had for almost twenty years, implementing it six days a week, and with little to non-existent vacations.  _ No rest for the wicked _ , a voice in his mind always reminded him.

For this was another day he had to go through, like any other day in his life, and he was going to make the best of it, like he always did. Starting by purchasing a house in a neighborhood he thought was very nice, a strange and warm feeling on his chest told him it was the right decision. Maybe the best he could’ve ever made.

**Author's Note:**

> Bonus points if you can figure out who Din's adoptive mother is. I had to give her a name because I can't just call her the way we all know her lol  
> Also I'm very sorry for making this first chapter pretty dark and grim, I wanted to channel their past and struggles on canon to a modern setting. If I triggered you or anything then I'm so sorry. Luckily future chapters won't be dark like this one, only light angst ;)


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